A Blessing in Pattaya

I have a new weekend tutoring job this year. It's not a bad deal. I "inherited" the gig from my friend Katie who taught it last year. Every Saturday I meet with P'Ja (with whose family I went to Kanchanaburi) and tutor four students. It's not hard work, the pay is good, and I get to hang out with P'Ja. The downside is that I can't travel on the weekends since the job is on Saturday afternoons. My new goal for the year is to try to do something fun and interesting every Sunday.

This weekend the new teachers went to Pattaya to visit Ko Larn. I helped explain to them what to do and gave them instructions on Friday afternoon as I sent them on their way to Victory Monument to catch a minibus. I didn't feel too bad, because I've been there before, but I still wanted to escape BKK for a while. I decided that I could take the bus down to meet them on Sunday to see some interesting sights.

early morning at Pattaya Beach

I left Bangkok on the 6:30 bus. I told them that I would meet them at Wat Phra Yai at 9:00, and I'm proud to say that I timed everything perfectly. After a taxi, a bus, and two songtao rides, I was at the temple. I looked at my watch- 9:00 exactly.

Big Buddha

I had to wait a few minutes for my friends to arrive, but I looked around the temple for a while as I waited. Wat Phra Yai is a surprising find in Pattaya. In fact, in a city like that it's hard to imagine that there's any religion at all. And yet Pattaya, like all of Thailand, is full of surprises. Known locally as "Big Buddha" or "Buddha Hill", the wat is the site of Chonbui Province's largest Buddha statue. Although it's certainly not the most impressive Buddha I've ever seen, the temple still was an interesting find. It sits atop a hill just past the bars and clubs of the sleazy farang Walking Street (past a sign reading "good guys go to heaven, bad guys go to Pattaya"), deserted that early in the morning. As my songtao driver took me up the hill, we passed a guy who looked like he was struggling to do some chin-ups on a railing. "Farang mao maak", the driver laughed and pointed... "very drunk foreigner." Some people go to Pattaya just to party, and that's an entirely depressing thought.

my Monday Buddha

My friends arrived soon. I was glad to hear that they had had a blast relaxing on Ko Larn. Originally they had planned to go home Sunday morning, but when I decided to come down they wanted to stay too. Pattaya is actually full of some really amazing sites that nobody knows about. We went to three different places that day, and were the only foreigners there. Farangs only want to go to Pattaya for the beach and the booze, but the city has so much more to offer. I spent the week researching to make sure that we would have a good time.

balancing coins at the lucky footprint of the Buddha

Two of my friends bought little cages of four birds each to release from the top of the hill. It's a Thai Buddhist tradition of making merit. Although I don't really agree with caging the birds to begin with, at least those eight birds got their freedom.

Big Buddha up close

Although it was overcast, it never rained on us. From the top of the hill we could see a great view of the coast as Buddha looked serenely back over the city.

The wat itself was fairly tiny. I took off my shoes and stepped inside, because I've always been fascinated with the intricate details on the inside of Thai temples.

inside the wat

One of my new Prathyom coworkers, Dean, decided that he wanted to take a photo with the monk. He's a naturally outgoing person, and we tried to convince him that it probably wasn't appropriate. Nevertheless, he stepped inside, and through a translator (ie the guy working at the temple shop) he asked the monk for a picture. Luckily he didn't mind (even though we interrupted him trying to watch the World Cup on his phone), and even offered to give us a blessing. I'm not Buddhist, but I won't say no to a blessing. Besides, Pattaya could use all the religion it can get. Several of us decided to accept his offer.

Receiving a blessing

The monk tied a little white string around my right wrist while he chanted some sort of prayer (the girls got theirs on their left wrist). Next he took a bundle of sticks sitting in a little bowl of holy water and began sprinkling me with it before beginning to tap me on the head with the sticks, still chanting. After a few seconds, he tapped me once more, quite a bit harder on the head and said "good luck to you". I'm still wearing my string bracelet.

The temple was a nice find. It's not the prettiest temple I've seen, nor the most important. It was a convenient meeting place and an interesting site, and that's all I had intended it to be. I never expected to receive a blessing from a friendly monk. Even in the middle of loud, drunken, (altogether too Russian), party-central Pattaya City, there can be found quiet places of worship. I think that's a really good thing. It's proof that religion can be found anywhere... even in Pattaya.

a view of Pattaya from the top of Buddha Hill